Tune in to happy songs to recall positive memories

Toronto, March 1 (IANS) If you listen to happy or peaceful music, you recall positive memories, whereas if you listen to emotionally scary or sad music, negative memories from your past may spring to mind, says a study.

The study, published in the journal Memory &amp; Cognition, detailed how participants accessed autobiographical memories after listening to unknown pieces of music varying in intensity or emotional content.

The experiment, conducted by Signy Sheldon and Julia Donahue of McGill University in Canada, tested how musical retrieval cues that differ on two dimensions of emotion — valence (positive and negative) and arousal (high and low) — influence the way that people recall autobiographical memories.

A total of 48 participants had 30 seconds to listen to 32 newly composed piano pieces not known to them.